Economics

Assessing multi-dimensional performance: Environmental and economic outcomes

Document Type

Article

Abstract

This study examines economic performance, environmental performance, and regulatory activity for plants in three industries: pulp and paper, oil, and steel. Stochastic frontier production function models show significant deviations from production efficiency. Older plants are less efficient in production, but perform no worse on emissions. Plants spending more on pollution abatement tend to do worse on both production efficiency and emissions. Stricter local regulatory pressure is associated with somewhat lower emissions, but has mixed effects on production efficiency. Positive correlations between SUR residuals for emissions and production efficiency suggest unmeasured plant-level characteristics that drive both economic and environmental performance. © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2006.

Publication Title

Journal of Productivity Analysis

Publication Date

11-23-2006

Volume

26

Issue

3

First Page

213

Last Page

234

ISSN

0895-562X

DOI

10.1007/s11123-006-0017-3

Keywords

efficiency, emissions, productivity, regulation

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